


A virtue?

by BourbonNeat



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: Top Gear Polar Special, Episode: Top Gear Vietnam Special, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BourbonNeat/pseuds/BourbonNeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy is patient. No, really.<br/>Well, mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A virtue?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TGS 2015 Halloween Challenge Part 2 prompt, Ice Melting. It really should just be some variant of drabble, but it refused to stay short enough to post as comment fic.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is fiction. It never happened and is not meant to imply anything about the people featured in the story.

For all that it was a lot more one-sided than he’d hoped, the kiss felt well worth the wait. 

The floppy hair was surprisingly soft underneath his fingers, and the sensation of James’ lips against his, the surprised puff of breath, so warm against his cheek, left Jeremy weak at the knees.

Almost perfect, really. Except for the look on James’ face when Jeremy pulled away. He’d expected surprise, of course, but now he began to worry that he’d gotten this all wrong. 

 

*** * * * ***

It happened several years ago when they were filming in Paris, the interaction Jeremy would later pinpoint as the moment the ice began to melt. Not that James was icy, precisely. He was just, well, very James.

They were standing outside the world’s narrowest car park exit, taking the piss while Richard attempted to coax his ridiculous Zonda out onto the street. The sight was so perfectly preposterous – one of those brilliant things they couldn’t have scripted if they’d tried – that Jeremy collapsed onto James’ shoulder shaking with laughter.

And James didn’t push him away.

Instead he’d just laughed even louder, that absurdly endearing, barking seal, donkey’s bray of a laugh, and looked at Jeremy, blue eyes practically dancing with mirth. It had been one of those perfect moments where Jeremy was almost certain the something that he had always felt between them was mutual, and this time it happened while they were touching.

He’d wanted so very badly to kiss James. But there were crowds and cameras and hordes of angry commuters all shaking their fists at Hammond. That and the very real possibility that James might punch him. Or, worse, crawl back into his shell and never laugh with Jeremy this easily again, which would be unbearable.

Clearly, there was nothing else for it: if he wanted to win over the slowest man on earth, he would simply have to be the most patient man ever. And, alright, so he might be a bit rusty at this and prone to shouting, but how hard could it possibly be?

Very, as it turned out.

Jeremy was patient while they built the Caterham. The sight of James working with those clever hands had always turned him on something chronic, and being in such close proximity gave him ample opportunity to reach out and touch. But he refrained. Of course, his frustrations _might_ have shown a bit more than usual on film, but in the exhilaration of actually getting the car to run they had almost hugged. Almost. And that had definitely been mutual.

He’d actually been sort of a bastard in the Artic, but he’d been a patient bastard – unlike James who had been a pedantic one – and that was the important thing. Hours upon hours upon hours, spent side by side in the Hilux and side by side in that miniscule tent, and Jeremy never used that as an excuse for physical contact. Well, not much anyway. It had been maddening, but he wouldn’t trade one moment of that awkward, claustrophobic, precious time alone in the tent for anything, just a pair of insomniacs talking of everything and nothing in the not-even-close-to-dark, as the days’ many annoyances faded into unimportance. When James presented him with the wine – a truly touching surprise that warmed Jeremy to his core despite the bitter cold – there had definitely been something there. Something, but sadly also cameras. Not to mention camera crew. Who slept in their own tent, but quite close by.

It was entirely possible that Jeremy had been a bit too patient last week when James, tipsy and tousled, clothing still damp from his ungainly swim for the docks, flopped down beside him at the Ba Hàng Bar. Jeremy laughed so hard that he thought the cheap plastic chair might collapse beneath him when the cigarette James selected from his waterlogged pack of Marlboros began to droop in his hand. On a whim, Jeremy plucked the soggy fag from his fingers, the brush of cool skin against his own electric, intending to offer him a dry cigarette and a light. Instead, James stole Jeremy’s own Marlboro from his startled lips, with an affectionately muttered ‘git’, eyes slipping shut as he took a long, slow drag.

Sharing that cigarette, as the last rays of the setting sun painted the rough wood of the floating bar in rosy hues, had been their most deeply something moment yet. But was it enough to act?

And that was problem with all of this patience malarkey. How the bloody hell did the patient ever manage to get anything done? 

 

*** * * * ***

Which is how he found himself here, tucked away behind an age-stained wall at Greenham Common, about to be punched. Or, at a minimum, shouted at. Confused, frustrated by the entire concept of patience, and confronted with the irresistible charms of a witty, playful James, he’d let his more impulsive nature take over and just kissed the man.

Eyes wide with surprise and something a lot more skeptical, James’ hand rose slowly to his face, fingers lightly touching slightly reddened lips. “Why, Jezza?”

Crushed, Jeremy felt his shoulders slump and the hopeful smile slide from his face. Some small part of him realized that he could probably save the whole situation with joke, but ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to lie to James.

“Because I’ve wanted to for a very long time.” The weight of James’ gaze made Jeremy want to shuffle his feet and look away, but he remained still. Waiting.

“You’re really not taking the piss, are you?” He finally asked, voice tinged with wonder.

Jeremy shook his head slowly. “No, I’m really not.”

Where Jeremy’s kiss had been somewhat hesitant, James’ was warm and eager. Jeremy parted his lips in delighted surprise, feeling his knees go weak again as James’ fingers tangled in his curls.

Patience was all well and good, Jeremy decided as his hands finally slid down the planes of the strong back he had admired for so long and pulled James closer, but clearly breaking out the hammers had its own virtues.

 


End file.
